An Oral History of The Pandoran Conflict
by chrispy9229
Summary: Four years ago, the conflict on Pandora between the human settlers and mercenaries and the na'vi tribes finally came to an end after ten bloody years of misery. But even after all this time, people are still trying to pick up their lives from the ashes. Now a man, after journeying through Pandora, and talking with the survivors of that war, tries to understand why it all happened.
1. Preface

_Authors Note:  
_

_I'm a big fan of the book World War Z by Max Brooks. It's not just the fact that it has zombies in it. Rather, I adore both its commentary of humanity and its oral history format. It's intimate and intelligent, and it's by far one of my favorite books. I figure i want to try my hand at writing in this format._

_The story that I'm going to tell you few, few watchers is an oral history of the Pandoran Conflict. It details the eight year fight between the invading human miners and mercenary forces, and the native na'vi tribes. Unlike my other work Colonies, this does not really revolve around a set of characters. Rather, it goes between the various personalities and veterans of the war that ended four years ago. It chronicles motivations, trials, hardships, atrocities and triumphs endured by people of all sides of the conflict, from the highest general of the human forces, to a simple na'vi farmer, fleeing their homeland. Unlike Cameron's focus on environmentalism, this story is about justice, identity, morality, heroism and villainy, war, innocence, and colonialism among other things. It is a book of memories. Of people trying to get a grip as to why things had to be like this. It is a hard journey, and the tales do not always end happily._

_Just for the record, its not related to Colonies in terms of story or characters, although there definitely a few nods here and there to it. That story's in writers hell right now, but I will get back to it sometime.  
_

_Chrispy  
_

* * *

_**A Short History of the Pandoran Wars.**_

_By Garth Munro._

* * *

There are some truths in this world that people refuse to acknowledge. It's not that they are ignorant to them, or that they are unaware that such a truth exists, but rather, they keep that truth out of their mind. Instead of openly acknowledging that truth, or even just deny it outright, they prefer to avoid thinking about the topic altogether in the hopes that the truth never becomes relevant. What people don't get is that those truths are never really expunged. Instead of being dealt with head on, or simply forgotten, that truth remains inside the hearts and minds of the people who have at least, realized or heard of that truth once in their life. It remains locked away in some dark recess of the mind, only to see the light of day when that person realizes it at the worst possible moment. And when that happens, realization can make grown warriors cry for what could have been done. There are many such truths in this sad world. But right now, I am only referring one in particular.

It's: "An eye for an eye makes the world blind."

The Pandoran Conflict, (also known as the Pandoran Wars, The Guerrilla War, The First Human-Na'vi War 'The War' or The Invasion to name a few) was a bloody, miserable period. Lasting for roughly eight years, the conflict claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands. Human and Na'vi, warriors and soldiers, farmers and miners, men, women and children; all died in some form or another. Whole villages were wiped out. Great tracts of once beautiful land turned into battered warzones. Trillions of credits being spent per day by the Earth governments and corporations to wage war, the list goes on. If any other sapient life form found this planet, they would use it as fine example of why species should never attempt to interact with each other.

Now the conflict is over. And the survivors are left trying to pick their former lives from the ashes. Human mercenaries are trying to get a grip on farming crops and building houses, as opposed to burning and destroying them. Na'vi raiders are trying to get back to hunting game as opposed to humans. Human warships have been converted to ferrying cargo and fish. Great beasts, once fierce mounts for Na'vi warriors, now graze amongst the rusted hulks of war machines. And Na'vi villages try to remember the songs they used to sing. The ones about harmony and peace, not blood and victory.

But even four years later, things haven't 'Gone back to normal'. They never will. It's not just the now permanent presence of humans, trying to eke out a living in the dangerous lands of Pandora. Many have entered the fires of the war and have come out changed, and not necessarily for the better. Old hatreds remain. Many tribes now often barter for human technologies. The weather just isn't the same as it used to be. Species have gone extinct. There's the unsettling presence of the Hollow people. Every month in the news there's some spat about resource and territory rights between the two races. And the pain of losing loved ones, through the human bullet or na'vi arrow, is never something that goes away. The scars on the land may run deep, but it is the scars upon the heart that run deeper.

It is now four years after the official end of hostilities. A new generation of people are growing up on Pandora and this one in particular asks their parents many uncomfortable questions. "What was the war like?", "Did you kill anyone?", "Why is this land barren?" and most of all "What did you do in the war?" Sometimes these questions are answered quickly and tersely, those being questioned shying away from it as much as possible. Others make it very clear that they don't want to answer, Period. Few people in this day and age speak honestly and openly about what had happened, and often they can only answer from their own perspectives.

This book, the one you are either holding in your hands or reading off a screen, isn't one that is based off of one single account. It is based off many. After the war ended, I found myself talking trying to collate data for the newly formed Colonial government in order to create a sort of 'after-action report' as it were. I was sent all over the world to collate data, interview survivors, and try to draw conclusions as to why events played out the way they did. I was given a surprising amount of resources: I had food, travel, security, plenty of translators, not to mention audiences with famous personalities and leaders of the conflict, both na'vi and human alike. I thought I had everything I needed. But what came as a shock to me was the news that almost half of my work was being cut out of the final product. It turns out; the administration was more interested in cold hard facts and data as opposed to interviews and explanations. Naturally, myself and the rest of the team that I worked with were quite irritated to say the least. According to the people publishing the report, they felt that the intimacy of some of the interviews clashed with the professional and clinical tone that the report needed to be, and for this reason, they were cut in order to reduce the threat of bias.

Yes there is that threat, but isn't this personal factor important? Will future generations really be interested in a bunch of statistics and numbers? By excluding the personal factor, the human and na'vi factor alike, we risk becoming detached from the events. The harsh memories reduced to abstractions. And we all know it is all too easy to commit atrocities when one is looking at numbers and not people.

So that is why we decided to put our own findings to paper, translate them into all of the assorted languages of Pandora, and then publish them cheaply enough so that even the poorest settler can get their hands on a copy. None of us were interested in profits. We just wanted to get these stories out. Some people may point out that with the war ending only four years ago, publishing these stories may be rash. The perspectives within may not have matured with rational hindsight. But if we continue to wait, we risk losing those memories forever. Its little secret that the standard of living for human and na'vi alike has dropped over the years and many of survivors of the war may not live long enough for that hindsight to come. Perhaps later, someone can record the recollections of the older, wiser survivors of the war. Maybe I'll be the one doing it.

This book was written and collated by a team of human and na'vi writers, translators and publishers. We have done our best to try to remain as neutrally biased as possible, although many would know that mistakes have been made at times that were grave enough to paint even the most decorated veteran a monster. This is not a firebrand journal lavishing blame upon those it deems the villains, nor is it an apologist treatise on why people were forced to commit so and so. It is a book of memories. The perspectives in this story are not our own. This is the book of the people who have been interviewed, not mine, and I have tried to maintain as invisible a presence as is possible. If there is any personal factor that needs to be removed, let it be my own.

_Garth Munro was previously a member of UNDETA: United Nations Department of Extra-Terrestrial Affairs, working as an analyst and consultant. His work involved a great deal of travel, negotiation and diplomacy. Many sapient rights and diplomatic successes and failures have been attributed to him._


	2. Roland Jefferies

**FOX. PROVINCE OF KANIEN.**

_[During the war the city of Fox, formerly known as Firebase Foxtrot, was one of the largest forts garrisoned by Guardia Paramilitaries. At its height, the base was home to a whole regiment of armed forces, as well as a few thousand civilian contractors, miners, loggers, and other support staff. Today, it is the second biggest city on the continent, nestled close to the Fox River among the forests and trades constantly with the nearby Irwahken tribes and villages. I meet Roland Jefferies in his office. Formerly an administrator, Roland was one of the 'old breed': one of the human settlers who were previously members of the original Hells Gate colony. When asked why he decided to return given the chance, he replies, 'Fresh air doesn't come cheap back on Earth.']_

* * *

In order to understand why exactly humanity came to Pandora in the first place, you really need to understand the situation back home on Earth.

[Jefferies fiddles with his desktop console for a moment. Shortly afterwards, a holo of planet Earth appears in front of us.]

Earth, population: nine billion, is on its last legs. Increasingly heavily urbanized, our dear old Earth is starting to run out the natural resources needed to sustain its population. Fossil fuels are beginning to run dry, space is at a premium, standards of living have, if anything, fallen and the gap between the rich and poor is now wider than ever. The situation was pretty grim for the planet. It wasn't that we needed raw materials; we could get that easily from mining asteroids and moons. People needed to find new sources of fuel and energy in order to keep the great cities from plunging into anarchy. So the various corporations and governments began to look to the stars for the answers. I'm not going to bore you too heavily with the details and scientific technobabble, but once we found a feasible means of reaching other solar systems there was just enough political and financial willpower to send a ship to Alpha Centauri.

**And to Pandora.**

[Nods] Indeed. You can read up the early histories of those brave pioneering scientists and their adventures with the natives on Pandora in any library today. Such tales… Stuff of legend my friend. If only our next visits were as beneficial to all…

[He sighs.]

Regardless, those pioneers eventually made it back home, many of them in body bags unfortunately. The tales they shared with the rest of us enraptured nations across the globe. But the people funding the expedition weren't interested in adventure. No, they cared only about one discovery in particular.

[He begins to rifle through his desk]

They only cared… about this.

[He comes up holding a small rock in his hands. It has a light metallic sheen to it. He lets go of it for a moment and it does not immediately drop straight down. He holds it in his fingers again.]

**Unobtainium.**

[He scowls] How green are you? Nobody ever calls it that anymore. I've heard words like Pandoran Gold, or Magnium, or Floating Rock being used or whatever, but nobody uses Unobtainium anymore. Most of the people I've met call it Pandorum. And why the hell not? It's easier to say and it's not as ridiculous sounding as 'Unobtainium'. I know whoever was naming it was referring to that old mining engineer term for a material that cannot be found anywhere naturally, but come on!

Anyways, this little rock, found in great quantities across Pandora is basically the Holy Grail for every engineer and corporation back on Earth. I'm not a big science guy or anything, but to the uninitiated, here's the gist of it.

Pandorum is what we call a natural super-conductor. Most metals, like copper or aluminium can conduct electricity, but they are limited by resistance. This means that the electrical energy is lost as heat that dissipates from the wire. It's basic high school science. What's unique about Pandorum is that it conducts electricity with absolutely no resistance at all. It can carry a charge across great distances without it being lost over time. This also gives it its unique magnetic properties. Notice how it floats? It has such a strong magnetic field it is actually repelled from the very ground. This allows for the incredible natural phenomena that we all know and love about Pandora, like the Hallelujah Mountains and stuff.

More importantly to us humans, this makes Pandorum absolutely perfect for creating some of the most advanced technologies available to man. Matter-antimatter generators. Interstellar travel. Superluminal communications, Maglev trains, all of these technologies are now possible thanks to Pandorum. By practically becoming the answer to all of the most critical technological inventions required for the continued maintenance and construction of Earth's cities this little rock that I'm holding in my hands became pretty much the most valuable natural resource in the history of man, not to mention becoming the new backbone of the Earth economy. You wouldn't believe the market prices a kilo of this used to fetch. Especially later in the war, when the material become even more scarce on Earth.

[He puts the rock back into his desk.]

As soon as the corporations realised that they had found the answer to all of their problems, they practically trampled over each other in order to mount an expedition to Pandora. But only one managed to secure a monopoly to the planet.

**The Resources Development Administration.**

Or RDA for short. Although they weren't that big at the time, Pandora has made them the biggest Mega-corp in the world. They're the ones who created the big maglev transit system back on Earth, allowing for journeys of thousands of kilometres just to go to work. Now after taking the huge risk of bank-rolling the expeditions to Pandora, they now own every bit of Pandorum, they have pharmaceutical and scientific divisions bolstered by the stuff they bring in from Pandora and they commanded whole PMCs to their name. Not bad for something that started up from a bunch of Silicon Valley eggheads working out of a garage back in the 2000's.

Anyway, they were the lucky ones who got to set up their own little mining operation here on Pandora. It was a most costly enterprise, in terms of blood and treasure, and when I mean blood, I mean it. A lot of people died trying to set up the first colony at Hell's Gate. Lot of lessons were learned the hard way in those days. Anyways we finally managed to start digging out the good stuff and ship it all back to Earth. Big endeavour… but lots of money. Those were big boom times for the company. Profits were rising. Costs and casualty figures were dropping. There was only one problem remaining. And it didn't take kindly to machines digging up land.

When our operation went into full swing, we rarely gave the natives much in the way of thought. We figured that if we tried to stay the hell out of each other's way, there wouldn't be any problems. Of course, there was always going to be friction. Every now and then a convoy, or a mining truck would get hammered by arrows, maybe a recon team of grunts would shoot at some hunter who they thought was stalking them, but as far as the company was concerned, they were just another occupational hazard. Like man-eating flora and fauna, or radiation.

Then things started to get nasty. Our original mine was started to run low on ore, so we started to look for new sources. Turns out, it happened to sit right underneath the Hometree of native tribe; the Omaticaya. The guys at the top didn't care. We wanted that source. And we were damned if a bunch of treehuggers were going to keep us from it.

**Couldn't you have looked for a different source?**

It was the biggest source in the region. We certainly wouldn't spend another dozen billion dollars or so to pay for extra shipping costs to another dig site, or to fund another base like Hells Gate. Our bosses figured they could barter with them… trade goods or services for the land. But it wasn't happening. Say what you will about Sully, but he was right about one thing: we had nothing to offer for them. They were prosperous enough to not need any food. They didn't need to replace their horses or banshees with trucks or choppers. They didn't suffer from any Earth diseases, so there was no need for medicine. And finally, they were already at peace with the other tribes, so we couldn't offer them guns for their land. We didn't have anything worthwhile to bring to the table. More importantly even if we did, they certainly didn't trust us enough to make such a deal. Between the skirmishes we had, and the horrible debacle at that school, trust was at an all-time low. So when push came to shove…

[Silence.]

About the Hometree… people are right. There was no excuse for the attack. Oh I know Selfridge and all the other big executives back on Earth trumpet their reasons. "We had no choice!", "It was a pre-emptive strike, which would have saved hundreds of human lives!" or "It was retaliation for years of harassment from tribal brigands!" Whatever… it's all bullshit. Sure we asked nicely first, but that's little consolation for the fact we went and bulldozered a tribe off their land and killed scores of them just so we could get at the rocks that they were living on top of. There were no treaties. No demands. No provocation. We really had no right to do what we did.

I was working at central ops when the whole mess was going on. I could see the whole thing play out on the central holo-table, even real-time footage of the whole tree coming down. Most of the people there with me viewed the whole thing with some kind of forced detachment. Kinda creepy really. Me, I just felt dread. Not for the tribesmen running away, but because it set a new precedent you know? Like what's not to stop us from doing the same thing again to another tribe that got in the way? Hell, we probably could've kept doing it indefinitely if someone didn't intervene.

**Jake Sully.**

The Legend himself. He was the one who…

[Pauses.]

Ah what the hell… we've all heard this story a million times now. Awesome white dude from planet Earth decides to join forces with the na'vi, gets in touch with his inner native, defeats the evil corporation in the big epic fight and lives happily ever after with his new hot wife. You know how it goes. [Grumbles to himself.]

**Well… you sound…**

[Cocks his eye right at me.] You're talking to one of the losers of that fight. I've got too much pride in me to heap praises on him. Even after all this time. [Sighs.] Shows what you get when you hire army screw-ups like Quaritch to run your show...

Anyway, the impossible happened, and our asses got kicked right back to Earth. The whole mining program was stopped right in its tracks. Every ship still in space headed home. And when the news of our loss reached Earth… Well…that was the moment when everyone collectively lost their shit.

Like I said earlier, Pandorum was the new lifeblood of the Earth economy, the new oil, or coal or whatever. So when news reached home that there wouldn't be any more of the stuff powering our or whatever, people panicked. The price shot through the roof. It was such shock that the panic created a damn economic recession right then and there. Jobs were cut, food lines went around the corner. By the time I had finally arrived back home, there were riots in the streets. and even though supply of the stuff had vanished into smoke, demand for Pandorum was still high as ever and rising. Earth NEEDED Pandorum.

There wasn't much rest for us when we got back. Right after we got back, the RDA spent the next ten years or so preparing the groundwork for another excursion. Except this time, it wasn't to start up one little base in the middle of nowhere. This was a full-blown invasion. Something that would keep us on Pandora for as long as we wanted. The question was now no longer how or should, but when.


	3. Walter Carlyle

**VAUXHALL, PROVINCE OF ALBION.**

_[Walter Carlyle agrees to take this interview whilst in between sessions with the province's council. Formerly an executive officer with the RDA, Carlyle is now attempting to run as the province's Member of Parliament for the second time in a neck and neck race between himself and his rival Dietrich Kobold. He wishes to get the interview over and done with as soon as possible; the elections will be over in a day or two.]_

* * *

Yes, yes, of course everyone paints us as the villains. We're always the bloody villains. 'Our river is being tainted by your factory upstream.', 'You're engaged in corporate espionage!', 'How much money did it take to pay off the government', we get this all the time. I get it; we're the evil corporate villains. We're the guys everyone loves to hate.

Yeah, well say what you will about us, but we were also the only fucking thing holding planet Earth together. Who were the ones who employed hundreds of thousands? Who funded all the technologies that keeps the world running? Whose philanthropy keeps all those charities afloat? Us. And do we get so much as a fucking thank you from the people? Nope, just the same old shit. If it wasn't for us, we would have never got to Pandora, and humanity would have been screwed. Need I say more?

**A lot of emphasis in the RDA has been on mining Pandorum.**

Or Unobtainium as we called it in those days. I know every environmentalist bemoans the destruction of natural habitats and what not, but that's progress for you. Pandora was the only realistic source for the metal that we needed, and we made sure it went to good use.

**Was it possible to create a synthetic variant?**

Get real… Look, I've heard all the rumors that the development of a synthetic version of Pandorum was deliberately stalled by the company in order to maintain their monopoly and maximise profits. It's a classic tale spun by the environmentalists. But talk to any scientist around here who's worth a damn and they'll tell you the same thing: It's just not possible. Look how at how much money has been poured into the research, before AND during the war! But even taking that into account, even the most optimistic scientific firms, after years of getting hundreds of billions of taxpayer credits poured into them by the Earth governments and ourselves, say that a decent breakthrough for a viable synthetic alternative to Pandorum is at least decades away. It's still just a pipe dream. That's the inconvenient truth those environmentalist pussies don't want to acknowledge. You can't do it. Even for someone as powerful as us.

**How much power did the RDA have in the old days?**

What's that got to do with anything?

**Well then, how 'philanthropic' was the corporation?**

Well quite a bit, thank you very much. We helped maintain several charities, including the Red Cross and Amnesty. We also helped fund the maintenance for many cities public monuments and works. And let's not forget the fact that that world-spanning transit system that people love to use was made by us. That means Ma and Pa Smith didn't have to worry about Consuela and the rest of the help having to live in their city so they could come to work on time.

**I understand the company has also funded many political parties in various parliaments and congresses throughout the world.**

Of course, how else do you think-

[He pauses, as is he was about to say something more before stopping in his tracks.]

We helped a lot of people to manage their galas. Why?

**It's just that a lot of the spending trends seem to edge towards parties who look favourably upon corporate-**

Oh grow the fuck up. Since when haven't people backed the horse they wanted to win? We help people get into power and in exchange they look favourably upon the people who helped them. It's a fair deal! That's the way it's been for the whole goddamn century. Its capitalism, we run on trade.

**But isn't that unconstitutional?**

Jesus, you make it sound as if it's not a democracy. Those parties still have to scrub up some votes right? We can't control a man's mind! If a party can't get in power, it's their own goddamn fault, not ours. It's not like its bloody bribery.

**Then what's the difference?**

You know…

**Seriously, what is the difference between what your company did and bribery?**

[Shoots me a glance of venom] Fine then Mr Smith Goes To Fucking Washington. Bribery is when you offer cash up front in some dodgy backroom deal. What we did was solve problems for the governments. Need some advanced infrastructure? Done, just look favourably upon us in the election. Want some job openings for the deadbeats? We'll do that, just give us some tax breaks for the year. Need to kickstart the economy? We can do that, just relax this punitive law here, and we'll be right at it! And finally if the entire fucking United Nations Security Council comes begging for us to find some Pandorum to keep the planet afloat, we ask for the necessary funding and law changes? You goddamn bet your bloody ass we did!

**And so we come to the question of the subsidies.**

[Walter silently fumes.]

Yes, alright? Yes its true, the various Earth Governments paid us subsidies in exchange for making sure that the Pandorum got through to Earth on time and in quantity.

**So essentially they paid you to make a profit?**

Fuck, how naïve are you!? Nobody does anything for free in this goddamn shithole of a universe! No one! We certainly weren't going to waste time trying to spend trillions of dollars on a highly risky enterprise if we weren't going to get something out of it. Why should we? For the good of humanity!?

It wasn't just our fault. You should take into account the fact that if it wasn't for our actions in getting humans onto this rock, humanity back home would be in an even bigger mess than it is now. Did you know how many people supported our occupation? And do you know how many of them were leftist, anti-corporate political organisations? Quite a damn lot actually. All of them were just miserable that some corporation got the rights to the planet before anyone else did. If they did have it their way, if they arranged it so that militaries from the US or Europe invaded instead of PMCs, nothing would have changed. Sure the troop colours may be different, but it would still be a hell of a lot of grunts burning and shooting their way through na'vi villages and slaughtering women and kids. Hell, it would probably be even worse! Have you seen how the quality of the government militaries has been going downhill? Anybody who's anybody in the business goes into the private sector. That's not only where the money is, that's where actual respect and recognition is nowadays.

[He looks at the time.] This interview is over, I've got to go. If your bleeding heart can't handle the truth then tough fucking shit then. A lot of people think along the same lines of thought as we did. They still do, and they're still going to. I've just found it easier to play the lines to them.

[Authors Note: Two days later, Carlyle lost the election to Kobold.]


	4. Francisco Contreras

**LAS SANTUARIO: PROVINCE OF NUEVO AZTLAN.**

_[I conduct my interview with Francisco Contreras in his office in the main administration building of Sanctuary. What strikes me the most about the place is that it doesn't feel at all like the office of a military commander. Two of the walls are lined with leather bound and paperback books, ranging from heavy tomes on civil and criminal law, to agricultural technologies and human history. The other wall is taken up by fictional tales, from The Odyssey, to The Last of the Mohicans. "Reading's in my blood." Contreras says. "My father wanted me to be a lawyer, but after I left the academy, I felt myself to be too good at waging war to have time for that sort of thing." Indeed, there are a few trophies placed on the shelves, including photographs, bits of scrap metal, and two na'vi pole arm weapons mounted on the walls. One of them is purely ceremonial in design. The other appears to have been plucked from a burning battlefield. Contreras; the former General of Guardia Paramilitaries as well as the former Chief of Staff of the RDA's Expeditionary Force, has a certain softness in his tone of voice. Throughout our interview he has difficulty retaining eye contact, often staring out into the ether.]_

People often ask me why things happened. Why we decided to wage war against a peaceful indigenous population. They're asking the wrong man. I waged war _for_ people, not against them if you know what I mean. The build-up, the escalation, the decision to invade… those decisions were made by executives who wanted lots and lots of boots on the ground. I just led the charge.

The company may now have been willing to invade the planet in force this time around, but there were still three massive obstacles that had to be surmounted: lack of manpower, long travel time, and the hostile environment. All of these were problems that couldn't necessarily be solved just by throwing money at them until they go away. Lack of manpower: they needed lots of soldiers to pull this occupation off, and to hold every region, otherwise the natives will continue mounting raids, long travel time: it previously took over two years to get to Pandora, and hostile environment: we needed to find a way to acclimatise our personnel to the hazardous environment of Pandora.

The first issue that the RDA tackled was the question of long travel times. Even with some of the most advanced space engineering and technology money could buy, the spaceships that we had could only go up to seventy percent of the speed of light. This meant that the average voyage to Pandora still took over two years to make, not counting return trips. This could have proven to be a massive problem for us as the situation on the ground changes in months, not years. Say for instance, we run into a large scale dig site somewhere. It's in the middle of the forest, so we're going to need specialist loggers in order to exploit the vein properly. So we send a request back home to Earth, and ask them to send those specialists over on the next starship to Pandora. Two years later, they finally arrive, freshly woken from cryo-sleep and eager to get to work. Problem: the dig site has just been swarmed over by na'vi raiders, making the whole place completely impassable. There's no more ore coming form that site anymore. So now we've got a whole bunch of loggers having to sit on their asses because it took them two years to get over here and we lost the site within two months.

To solve this problem, the RDA poured its resources into faster-than-light travel. It took them the finest physicists in the world and a trillion or so dollars but eventually, after six fucking years they finally came up with something. They figured it out. They finally broke the light barrier or something. I'm not a scientist, and some of the most basic equations that they throw around in the news go right over my head, but somehow they figured out a way to shorten the travel time from two years, to roughly seven months of travel time. Could still be hard as hell when it came to picking what reinforcements we needed, but it was now feasible to get the correct specialist personnel and equipment when we needed it. Still, it was bit of a- what you call it… Catch 22?

**How so?**

Well, in order to pull off the faster than light travel, we needed to take all of the other space ships, all ten of them, take their Pandorum and parts and whatever, and create one single super star ship about the length of a small country. The power required for faster than light was probably the same as the whole output for the Indian subcontinent. I always felt that was ridiculous. I mean, we're building a great big spaceship so we can mine Pandora, and we need to mine Pandora so we can build a bigger spaceship. How strange is that?

Regardless, that was problem of long travel times solved, or at least mitigated. The other problem was acclimatisation. Pandora in those days had some of the most hostile environments known to man. Between the fact that everything from the average viperwolf to the plants were bigger than us, the radiation levels could kill you with a sudden flare up and the fact that the air itself could not be inhaled without an exo pack, every day was a battle for survival. Lord, even today you can't cross the street without a gun in your holster. We needed to find some way of making the land as habitable as home. And the answer came in the form genetic therapy.

It was a very controversial decision at the time. Genetic enhancement came under a lot of scrutiny back in the 2120's as part of the latest round of 'what does it mean to be human?' debates. Although it had quite substantial benefits, almost everyone feared that constant tampering with the genome could undermine humanity itself, create a caste system of genetic haves and have-nots or even create some eugenics based dystopia or something. After a while, they managed to come up with a law that more or less solved the problem. Simple rule of thumb: enhancing already present abilities; like eyesight or reflexes is okay, giving new abilities; like a new arm, or colour changing skin is not.

Anyway, the RDA decided that the best way forward would be to genetically modify every soldier and colonist who went to Pandora. They certainly weren't going to put up with people choking to death because their exo pack is broken.

**I assume you're talking about the treatments most humans went through?**

Yes. The ones you and I took before we sent foot on this grassy rock.

You remember how it goes. All those constant injections and checkups. God, it felt to me like they took up a quarter of my life for the one year they spent preparing us for the occupation. Then you had the try outs… all the people who suffered sicknesses and illnesses as their bodies adapted themselves. Some people had to spend months in hospital. A few died for Christ sakes. But it was worth it.

The enhancements we were given are quite subtle, baseline in nature. Changes were made to our lungs to be able to breathe the toxic mix that is Pandoran air. Bones were toughened up to help accommodate the lowered gravity. Skin and tissue became much more resistant to the radiation that hammers down around here. Throw in the various minor enhancements made to reflexes, muscle mass and stamina and we're basically set for living a healthy life on Pandora.

**Not everyone was happy about the enhancements though.**

[Nods] Indeed. As positive as it was, there were still many who opposed the whole process. Some said the whole process was akin to creating a new breed of human. They feared that the humans on Pandora would evolve into something that could no longer be called Homo sapiens. Others in the RDA establishment felt it wasn't worth the cost of modifying tens of thousands of people in order to secure the moon. They felt that the exo-packs were enough, and that shipping even more men to replace the casualties would be more cost effective. [Scowls.] And finally, there were many colonists who, for a variety of reasons, refused it all. Maybe they're religious, and believe that the body God gave us should not be tampered with. Maybe they were worried about the side effects. Due to the cost of having to accommodate these people; the cost of building extra airtight buildings, exo-packs, radiation shielding and what-not, these people were basically let go. If they were lucky they'd either be doing administration work , or assigned to one of the units still operating security assignments.

**Wasn't the Avatar Program a possible solution?**

[Laughs] That program got shut down as soon as Hells Gate fell to the natives. Do you think that the company would want its employees to go frolicking with the natives ever again?

Heh… To be completely fair though, the program had lost most of its backing years ago. It was originally developed as an attempt to create miners that would be resistant to the rigors of Pandoran life and later would be used by scientists to liaison with the na'vi, but the program was just too hideously expensive. I don't know the actual costs but from what I understand the money that was spent on creating and maintaining the previous team of a dozen Avatar operators for a year could have paid and maintained a whole regiment of Gekko UCVs. When you consider the amount of people we were going to send over from Earth, it was never going to compete with gene therapy.

Still, even with the enhancements, we were still going to have a rough time on Pandora. Considering that the average na'vi is almost twice as tall as the average human, not to mention all of the wildlife dwarfing our vehicles, we knew that even if they stuck to bows and spears, the casualties that we would suffer would bleed us out in the end. Like I said earlier, the strength enhancements were fairly minor. We knew that we needed to find a way to even the playing field as it were. And this time, the answer came not with genetics, but with machines.

[He nods over to the corner of the office. Tucked away by the door, there is what appears to be a human shaped metal framework hanging on the wall, about Contreras's size. I automatically recognize what it is.]

**Is that a Mk.1 Exo-suit?**

[Smiles] That was what I was wearing when I first set foot on this moon. I'm a sentimental man, so I kept it around.

Exo-suits, or powered exoskeletons, were a creation that was originally developed back in the early 21st century. The idea was solid: create a mechanical framework that could increase the amount of equipment that a soldier could carry tenfold. Of course power and dexterity issues and what not always plagued the early models, so they were not considered standard issue for a long time. In the old days they were typically only given to specialized units, like .50 Cal SAW operators for example. That was when our own scientists dug up those old concepts, and adapted them to utilize current technologies.

These new Exo-suits are essentially a framework of mechanical hydraulics that is powered by an advanced battery built into the suits back plate. Worn outside and on top of clothing and threaded with the body armor, these hydraulics help to exponentially increase the strength of the wearer, allowing them to perform acts of strength and speed that were previously only limited to augmented personnel. It may give its wearer the appearance of having some terrible disability, but no one has ever denied the benefits it has given to the men and women who came to Pandora. I have seen and heard plenty of accounts of humans engaging na'vi in close-quarters combat thanks to the enhanced strength it gives. I cannot stress enough as to how important this standard-issue piece of technology is to humanity. With it, every man and women has a chance to survive on Pandora.

Anyways, that was the question of acclimatisation solved, now comes the issue of manpower: finding enough troops pull off this invasion. The fundamental problem that the RDA had was fairly simple: their losses during the first battle with the Na'vi were great enough in that they needed troops immediately. They had various other commitments on Earth that meant that they couldn't simply just drag troops out from pre-existing conflicts. That was when they decided that instead of just hiring troops into one PMC that they themselves ran, they decided to hire out eight entire army-sized PMC's to do the job for them. This had the advantages of getting a lot of troops to Pandora in quick order, an easy to manage decentralized command system and finally, armies that were more suited and specialized for their theatres of combat.

**Who were the PMC's?**

Everyone knows about the eight Private Military Companies that came to Pandora. They were all human obviously, but they all came from such a variety of backgrounds and cultures from Earth that they practically became tribes in their own rights. Some focused on discipline, others on initiative. Some adopted mechanized doctrines, others light attack. All of them led the charge on Pandora.

Let's see… first of the PMC's was the Grand European Legion, or just the Legion for short. This was a disciplined, professional army, composed of men and women from the old lands of the European Federation, such as France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Britain to name a few. They were led by some of the finest veterans from the conflicts in the African Sahara, and they poured their focus and resources, into professionalism and, and in fostering alliances with friendly tribes. They were led at first General Alain Montblanc. Fine leader he was… progressive and adaptable.

The second was Oborten Oborona Resheniya: Russian for Werewolf Defence Solutions. These guys were hardened veterans, their latest exploits being in defending some of the last oil rigs in the old Motherland from organized criminal efforts to steal them away. They were hardy people, but agile, and capable of fighting in dense forest as well as the cities. Their focus was on mechanized warfare, to make sure that if there is problem in some outpost in the middle of nowhere, a convoy of armored vehicles will be there within a minute. Good men, all of them. Especially their leader, General Nadya Ferdnova. Terrifying woman. It is little wonder they called her the Iron Mother.

The third was Sword Group. These Arab men and women, from Egypt to Iran, all the way to India, even with a few Israelis, could be counted upon to find a solution to a problem no matter how impossible. Be it siege, insurgency or all-out attack, those men would find a way to win. They had little problems adapting themselves to the hotspots of Pandora's ecosystem. Their leader was Hassan al-Nadir. He came from nothing, but he worked his way to become the leader of one of the best armies we know of today. His interest in bio-mechanical Unmanned Combat Vehicles, like the Gekko or War Hound, meant that one could be seen accompanying every squad in his army out on patrol.

The fourth was Kestral Security. They made their fortunes in peacekeeping operations in Africa. Fitting, seeing as they all came from the continent. Nigeria, South Africa, Congo… those men had plenty of experience. They may not have the discipline of the Legion, but don't mistake them as rabble. They are all brave men and women, who prize initiative, and rarely run from battle when the going gets tough. They preferred to use their light attack vehicles to do get across the plains and savannahs of their theatre of war.

The fifth was the naval outfit, Typhoon Navies, or Táifēng Hǎijūn. Most of them hailed from China, although a few come from Japan or Korea or South-East Asia. Their job was to make sure that all the offshore and coastal facilities, as well as the naval convoys that the RDA ran were safe from attack. They had plenty of anti-piracy experience and some of the finest marines in the world. Well-disciplined and experienced, they were ready to tackle the rough alkaline seas of Pandora.

The sixth was Guardia Paramilitaries.

**Your group.**

Indeed. We fought our battles across Latin America, fighting everyone from governments, corporations, rebels, criminals and even Norte Americano armies. I led my men against the Americans when Venezuela liberated herself from corporate shackles. We were a motley bunch, hardly any advanced firepower, but we became so renowned across mercenary circles that we were amongst the first who the RDA approached with the offer to fight in the jungles and forests of Pandora. Eh… I'm getting ahead of myself…

Then there was the American group Zenith Advanced Security. They were led by that futurist warrior David Harrison, who was a strong believer in transhumanism. He spent heavily in developing mechanically augmented soldiers. You know the ones I'm talking about, with mechanical arms and whatnot. He may have hired a strange assortment of ex-soldiers and civilians to be his warriors, but none can deny the effectiveness against the na'vi.

And finally, we had ACE. Aerial Combat Expeditions. They were essentially the air force of the invasion. Every army had transport capability and choppers, true, but it was ACE that had the strike fighters, and even that terrifying flying fortress, The Chandelier. Their pilots were from all over the world and their assistance was rarely unappreciated.

Those were the eight Private Military Companies that the RDA hired. The eight armies that they sent to invade Pandora so they could play at conquistador.

[A dark expression comes across his face.]

And best of all, if any of the forces played too rough with the native, they could simply say that it's the fault of the army in question, and not of the invasion as a whole.

**There was lots of opposition from Earth governments to the use of private companies for security operations on Pandora.**

Correct.

**If there was that opposition, why didn't those governments band together to send in their own troops?**

Are you kidding me? Publicly they said that all right. But the truth was is that they wanted us here. Hell, they were GLAD we went instead. Because if we weren't, they'd have to come and do the entire job themselves with their own resources. [Sighs] It would be a thankless, worthless, bloody job and once the body count started to rise, they'd be screwed. Any casualties here on the moon would be trumpeted by media. Once that happens, the public opinion would just shift away from the governments and even the UN. A dead kid from the States garners more public attention than the fifty or so Na'vi he'd be protecting. So even if they did give a big enough shit, their own media prevents them from paying any meaningful cost.

**What if the UN takes control?**

They don't have the resources to do any mining. They have the manpower and the administration, but they don't have near enough money to build new starships, even with the newer faster models. The only way forward for them would be to take one from the RDA, but they never found the willpower or the cojones to do so.

That's why the RDA Ran the whole show. Pandorum had become the new lifeblood of Earth. We needed it to survive. In the biggest machine in the history of humanity, we the Mercenaries were the necessary evil.


End file.
